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Dad thanks NHS after being able to walk

A DAD with acute and agonising sciatica may be able to return to work and can now walk without a stick thanks to complementary therapy while he waited for a cure on the NHS.

Justin Willis, aged 42, of Beauchamp Road, Malvern, was in such pain he felt he was being ‘stabbed’ and collapsed up to four times a week, sometimes in front of his distressed daughter, Tyler, now aged six.

Mr Willis has been signed off work at Foster Care Co-operative in Malvern his GP since last October but now, thanks to the two Malvern-based therapists, feels the worst may be behind him. ditching his stick a month ago. He has an appointment with his GP on Thursday and hopes his doctor will be able to give the green light for a phased return to work.

Mr Willis has received help free-of-charge from Tim Willcocks, a Malvern-based practitioner of Bowen Therapy, who had read of Mr Willis’s ordeal in your Worcester News and sister paper the Malvern Gazette. Meanwhile, he was spotted by Julie Spriggs of Julie’s Complementary Therapies in Morrison’s in Malvern and she also offered to help him free-of-charge on the spot, using Reiki.

Mr Willis said: “There has been an improvement. I am certainly a lot better though I’m not out of the woods. I have seen the two therapists and the pain has definitely dissipated.

"I’m taking painkillers as well. I really appreciate what they have done.”

He is expecting another nerve root block injection on the NHS but said he had yet to be given a date for an appointment. He hopes the injection will stop the pain completely.

He said: “I’m hoping to go back to work next week (at a foster care agency in Malvern). There are a lot of people who dismiss the alternative stuff but I have done it and found it to be extremely relaxing.

"While waiting for the NHS there are other routes that people can try. Some people say it’s a load of poppycock but it has certainly helped me. You’re just waiting endlessly on the NHS.”

Mr Willis said the feedback from the NHS was that his condition was not life-threatening but said he had felt like he was ‘at the bottom of the pile’. He said: “It does completely mess your life up.”

Mr Willis’s ordeal began in October 2012 with a prolapsed disc in his lower back which may have been caused by him lifting a guitar amplifier.

Since then he has been under the care of the Royal Orthopaedic Hospital NHS Foundation Trust. He has had MRI scans and has had acupuncture, a pain-numbing nerve root block injection and painkillers.

Mr Willcocks said when he first saw Mr Willis it was ‘even painful for him to draw breath’ but believes Bowen treatments have played a large part in his recovery. Mrs Finch said: “He seems like a different person now.”

Comments (1)

I remember the first report of this guy moaning about the NHS when he already had an appointment and was under a consultant for treatment. I'm glad the therapies have worked for him but I fail to see how he could have thought he was left at 'the bottom of the pile'? We can't all be at the head of the queue can we?

I remember the first report of this guy moaning about the NHS when he already had an appointment and was under a consultant for treatment. I'm glad the therapies have worked for him but I fail to see how he could have thought he was left at 'the bottom of the pile'? We can't all be at the head of the queue can we?jb